An eUICC (Embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card) is a third-generation telecommunication intelligent card. Power of the eUICC originates from the M2M (Machine to Machine) field. An increasing quantity of M2M devices need to be combined with an embedded SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module Card) in an apparatus in a manufacturing process. In addition to the field of M2M-type devices, for example, M2M apparatuses used for in-vehicle communications applications, the eUICC may also be applied to the field of consumer devices, for example, mobile phones and wearable devices.
An end user (End User) may load subscription information (profile) of an operator online into an eUICC of a terminal. In the prior art, a terminal device may connect to a network by using preset subscription information (Provisioning Profile, PP), to download a profile. However, the PP needs to be preset on terminal settings and has low utilization. An eUICC cannot communicate with another device in the network by using the PP, and the PP is only used to download the profile from the network. Therefore, a manner in which the eUICC downloads the profile by using the PP has high costs and low number resource utilization.